


Trust

by willows_shame



Series: Peaks and Mountains [5]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gem Fusion, I'm Bad At Tagging, Multi, Self-Loathing, Trauma, Trust, discussion of consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:08:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28985352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willows_shame/pseuds/willows_shame
Summary: "So what, exactly, could Lapis say if they asked her to fuse? What would happen if she said no? They’d be disappointed in her at best, angry at her at worst. It had been so long, shouldn’t she be better now? This was, sometimes, the most important thing in a gem’s relationship with their partner or partners. For Ruby and Sapphire, it was so important that they were Garnet all the time unless they were teaching classes. What did it mean that Lapis couldn’t give this to them? She did trust them. …Right?"Lapis Lazuli hasn't fused with any gem since she and Jasper were Malachite. When her partners fuse for the first time, she struggles to sort through her feelings about their fusion and fusion in general.
Relationships: Amethyst/Lapis Lazuli/Peridot (Steven Universe)
Series: Peaks and Mountains [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1955239
Kudos: 9





	Trust

**Author's Note:**

> hi!
> 
> ok! this is the last one! here's the fifth and final installment of peaks and mountains. this is only the sixth thing i've posted on here, so thanks to everyone who's left kudos and nice comments :) this whole experience has helped me get less nervous about sharing my work, so yeah. :)
> 
> as always, if anyone thinks i should add something to the tags or change the rating or anything, please let me know.
> 
> disclaimer: i don't own any of the characters except for the two new fusions. e'erybody else belongs to rebecca sugar and the su crew, as do most places.
> 
> happy reading!  
> \- willows_shame

The fusion was…chaotic.

Stable, yes, but excitable, wild, and energetic. This was, of course, unsurprising considering who her components were.

“Hey Lapis,” the green gem said, flopping onto the grass in front of her and propping her chin on two of her fists. “Betcha can’t guess who we are.”

“No, however could I,” Lapis said dryly, surveying the gem in front of her.

She was taller than Garnet, but not by much. Her lips, currently stretched into a broad grin, were full, and her nose was small and pointed. She had four arms, two legs, two eyes, and wild green-yellow-lavender hair—other than that, she was entirely green, a smooth almost jade-like color speckled with darker spots and lighter swirls. She was kicking her feet in the air behind her, and she winked and stuck out her tongue as Lapis concluded her perusal. One of her free hands reached out and poked Lapis’s foot, and she drew that knee up, keeping her stance open, casual.

She leaned one elbow on her knee, letting her forearm hang over and her wrist fall limp, and kept the other leg stretched out. That was normal, right? She was fine.

The fusion rolled over onto her back, and craned her head back to look at Lapis. “Wanna guess my name?”

Lapis shrugged. “Greeny.”

The fusion pouted, and Lapis wondered for a split second if she’d gone for _too_ dry, but then she grinned again and said, “Aventurine. Nice ta meet ya.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Lapis said, and it was half genuine. She was happy for them, really. Peridot had been trying to fuse with some gem or another periodically for years, since that first time she’d told Lapis about, when she’d stood on her paint cans and tried to dance with Garnet. She tried again with Garnet once things had settled down, after Steven (and the rest of them, but mostly Steven) saved the universe. Then she’d tried with Steven, with Bismuth, and countless times with Amethyst. Now Steven had been gone for two months, and apparently they’d finally succeeded.

“Have you introduced yourself to anyone else?” she asked. She wasn’t asking them to _leave_. She was just wondering.

“Not yet,” Aventurine said, folding one pair of arms behind her head and the other across her chest. “Wanted to show you first.”

Lapis smiled, then, because that had been sweet of them. “Thanks for thinking of me. Garnet’s gonna be proud.”

Aventurine rolled over again, and grinned. “Yeah, she is, isn’t she?” And there was that craving for approval that they’d both worked on pulling back over the years. “D’you know if she’s free?”

“She should be,” Lapis said. “She doesn’t have classes today.”

“‘Kay,” Aventurine said, and stood, then paused. “Wanna come?”

Lapis waved a hand. Casual. “Nah. Your show.”

She grinned. “‘Kay. See ya later!”

And then she was gone, and Lapis let out a shuddering breath, and hugged both knees to her chest, burying her face in them. She was fine. She was fine. She was fine.

She wasn’t fine.

Why did it have to be green, she wondered? It wasn’t that green was an inherently bad color—Peridot was green, a bright green that Lapis loved. But couldn’t Aventurine have been purple, or even a mix of Peridot’s green and Amethyst’s—well, amethyst?

But green.

A duller, darker green.

Like _her_.

She tried to take deep breaths; she knew logically that she didn’t need it, but her body was screaming for air, and the calm, slow breathing wasn’t working, and she couldn’t help it when the breaths sped up. This had happened before, a thousand times. But she hated that it was happening because of Peridot and Amethyst.

It wasn’t their fault. It was hers. She _trusted_ them. She was overreacting. It was just fusion, it wasn’t like she didn’t see fusion sometimes what felt like every day. So what made Aventurine different?

The green?

No. She knew, deep down, maybe.

It was because it was Peridot. Peridot and Amethyst.

For so long, she and Peridot had been the only ones who didn’t fuse. Even Bismuth did, rarely, and for Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and Steven it was almost commonplace. Even Connie, a _human_ , fused with Steven. The gems around them were learning, were unlearning, were throwing away old biases and fusing and dancing and loving each other.

But Lapis and Peridot loved each other without fusing, loved Amethyst without fusing with her. And Amethyst never pushed them.

Now, though…

Now Peridot and Amethyst _had_ fused. Would they expect Lapis to, to try? Would they be disappointed when she _couldn’t_? Would they leave her?

It had been almost an accident, at first. Peridot had discovered Camp Pining Hearts fanfiction, had devoured it with an energy only rivaled by her attitude toward the canon itself, had shoved a tablet into Lapis’s hands and insisted she read it too. Amethyst had come over while she was reading, and Peridot had asked her a seemingly innocent question: “What is _flirting_?” She’d used the same emphasis, almost derisive, that she did whenever she learned a new Earth word, and Lapis smiled to herself as she scanned the words on the screen in front of her. Endearing.

Amethyst had burst out laughing. “Want me to show you?” she said with a wink, and Lapis looked up to watch. She knew exactly what was coming.

Peridot had nodded, completely oblivious, and Amethyst had said, fighting back snickers, “Hey baby, aside from being sexy, what do you do for a living?”

Peridot’s jaw dropped, and Lapis couldn’t hold back a snort of laughter. Amethyst, laughing too, turned to her and said, “What, think you could do better?”

Lapis shrugged, and said, “I could talk about how pretty Peri is all day.”

The gem in question had covered her flushed face with both hands, letting out a small squeak. “You asked,” Amethyst said, reaching over to give Lapis a fist bump. “That’s flirting.”

After that, it became a competition. Amethyst started coming to spend time with them more often, and she and Lapis would flirt with Peridot incessantly until she was blushing and complaining. And at some point Amethyst had kissed her, and then they’d all frozen and stared at each other, and then Peridot had grabbed Lapis by the front of her top and kissed her, and then Amethyst had reached over, hesitantly, and Lapis had smiled.

Since then they’d been almost inseparable, even with building Little Homeworld and then teaching classes and Amethyst being crazy busy. Amethyst was spending as many nights with them in Little Homeworld as she did at the temple, now—whether they chose to sleep or do other things.

So what, exactly, could Lapis say if they asked her to fuse? What would happen if she said no? They’d be disappointed in her at best, angry at her at worst. It had been so long, shouldn’t she be better now? This was, sometimes, the most important thing in a gem’s relationship with their partner or partners. For Ruby and Sapphire, it was so important that they were Garnet all the time unless they were teaching classes. What did it mean that Lapis couldn’t give this to them? She did trust them. …Right?

She heard them coming back to the field before she saw them, and it gave her a chance to straighten, to siphon the last remaining tears from her face and eyes, to blink hard and attempt to look normal. “Lapis!” Peridot yelled, and ran over to plop down beside her, kissing her cheek.

She smiled. She was fine. “Hey. No more Aventurine?”

“Nope,” Amethyst said, popping the p. She sat down on Lapis’s other side, and tipped her head onto her shoulder. Lapis almost wished they’d move away, give her space, but Peridot and Amethyst were both so touchy and usually she was too, so she didn’t say anything. “We couldn’t hold her for that long.”

“Garnet said that’s normal,” Peridot said, and Lapis braced herself for a torrent of words because that was Peri’s “I’m going to talk about this thing I’m excited about until someone tells me to shut up” voice. “She said when gems first fuse it can be difficult to keep together sometimes, often because it’s a shock. I suppose it was a shock for us—we didn’t even have to dance to form Aventurine. We were simply together on the beach, and then we were _together_ together if you know what I mean. We…”

Her words faded out. “ _Together_ together if you know what I mean.” If Lapis knew what she meant? Of course Lapis knew what she meant. _Together_ together. Alone. Not yourself. A monster. She nodded, she smiled, she even laughed when she thought the moment called for it, and Peridot didn’t stop talking so she must be doing it right. _Together_ together. She couldn’t be _together_ together with them. She wasn’t enough for them.

Worse—if she did fuse with Peridot or Amethyst, what if she took over, like she did with _her_? What if she hurt them? She would hurt them. She knew it. She couldn’t.

“Peri,” Amethyst’s voice broke in, suddenly, and Lapis was paying attention again because she didn’t think Peridot had been done…? And Amethyst’s voice was more serious than usual. “I think that’s enough.”

Peridot trailed off. “I…Lapis?”

“I’m fine,” she said automatically, but Amethyst’s hand touched her face and she flinched.

“You’re okay,” Amethyst murmured, wiping away a tear Lapis hadn’t noticed. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Lapis said, hugging her knees to her chest. “It’s stupid.” She felt a rage rising in her, and she pushed it down desperately, because that felt too much like _her_ rage, and Lapis wasn’t _mad_ at Amethyst or Peridot, or Aventurine, or anyone. She wasn’t mad at anyone.

Peridot sat back down. She’d stood up at some point—Lapis hadn’t noticed. She reached out too, and now they were both _touching_ her and Lapis just wanted to be alone. “You can talk to us, Lapis. Was it—was it Aventurine? Did she remind you of…”

“No,” Lapis said too sharply when she’d regained the ability to speak. “I’m fine.” And she spread her wings and took off, flying away from their hands, their eyes, their worry.

She was fine.

* * *

Lapis returned to Little Homeworld as the sun was setting. They’d start to worry, she knew, if she stayed out much longer. She’d have to have a long talk with Peridot and Amethyst as it was, one that she wasn’t looking forward to. She’d gotten better at talking, at telling people when and why she was upset, over the past few years, but it was still…not exactly her favorite thing in the universe to do.

She lit down in the square. It was empty; most gems were either in their lodgings or out and about, mingling with Beach City residents.

“Lapis!”

It was Peridot’s voice. Lapis sighed, turned, and steeled herself for the coming talk.

Peridot was running towards her, but stopped short. Sometimes it felt like she was always cautious with Lapis—but that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t _always_. It was only when Lapis ran away.

So often.

“Hey Lapis,” Peridot said, shifting her feet. Amethyst came up behind her, bumped her shoulder against Peri’s.

“Yo, Lazuli,” Amethyst said. “Wanna head in?”

Lapis nodded. She did, and she didn’t. She appreciated Amethyst’s calm at the same time as she resented it, because sometimes it felt like she was the only one who hadn’t grown. Steven had gotten help, Amethyst had matured, Pearl had thrown off the last remnants of her servitude, Garnet was splitting into Ruby and Sapphire just for the heck of it sometimes, without worrying, as Bismuth once told Lapis they used to, that being Ruby and Sapphire made them less Garnet. And now? Now Peridot was fusing.

Lapis had stayed the same.

Their small apartment in Little Homeworld, just next to Bismuth’s forge, was stuffed full of meep morps. Most of them had been created by Lapis and Peridot, but there was a good number by now that Amethyst had made. The purple gem flopped onto Peridot’s bed, and tugged Peridot down on top of her, nodding to Lapis’s bed so she didn’t feel the need to join them. Lapis let out a tiny, inaudible sigh. Amethyst really did know her quite well.

“Lapis?” Peridot said. Her voice was small. Lapis always hated it when she made Peri feel small.

“Yeah?” she said, smoothing her pants and keeping her eyes down.

“You know we don’t think just because we fused you have to as well. Right?”

She said nothing.

“We really don’t,” Amethyst said. “You know we’d never pressure you into that.”

That’s what she’d said the first time she and Lapis had brought up bringing each other to their peaks, and Peridot had squeaked and blushed worse than she did when they were flirty. Lapis crossed her arms. “I know,” she lied.

“Do you?” Peridot asked, and Lapis made a face at her knees.

“It’s not like our relationship’s based on fusion, Lapis,” Amethyst said. “We’re not Garnet.”

“I know that,” she said. “I’m sorry. I overreacted.”

“No you didn’t,” they chorused. “We should have been more sensitive,” Peridot said.

Lapis looked up, finally. “You were excited,” she said. “You have every right to be excited.”

“Yeah,” Amethyst said, “but that doesn’t mean we should just ignore what you’re feeling. We should have noticed and toned it down.”

Lapis sighed again, this one more frustrated. The feeling of air in her chest was strange, but not as strange as it had been before her time in the mirror. Being around Steven and the Crystal Gems had really changed her very actions, her instincts, which was fascinating if she thought about it.

Which she shouldn’t be doing right now.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I should have said something. I should have learned to talk to you by now.”

“You have!” Peridot said, shifting forward on the bed, out of Amethyst’s hold.

“You have,” Amethyst repeated, nodding.

Lapis screwed up her lips. Amethyst sighed then, and slipped off Peridot’s bed to sit on the floor in front of Lapis. “Hey,” she said. “What do you want right now?”

“Just to forget today happened,” Lapis said. Amethyst nodded, but out of the corner of her eye Lapis saw Peridot wilt a bit, and she rushed to add, “Not you fusing! Not that. Just—the way I reacted. I…” She gave up, sagged, closed her eyes. “I wish I had shown that I’m happy for you.”

Amethyst’s hand was on her knee, hesitantly, gently. When she didn’t twitch her leg away, the hand squeezed. “You don’t have to be happy for us. It’s not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal,” she said, letting herself fall back to lie down. “It’s Peri’s first time fusing. It’s exciting. And I am excited for you! I just…”

The bed depressed next to her, and she opened her eyes a slit to see Peridot sitting down carefully. “Amethyst mentioned that perhaps it was Aventurine’s color,” she said. “Was that part of it?”

Lapis nodded.

Peridot wrinkled her nose, then said, “Can I cuddle with you?”

Lapis nodded.

Amethyst joined them, and Lapis let them snuggle close. This time it was good. This time she wanted the comfort of their touch, and she hated that she hadn’t before. She wished, with all her heart, squeezed her eyes shut and prayed, that she’d get better. That she’d be able to give her partners what she wanted so much to give them, what she was so scared to give them. Why couldn’t she just _be better_? She knew she’d changed, at least a bit. And she didn’t— _she_ wasn’t there because of love. So wouldn’t a fusion with Amethyst or Peridot be different? It had to be. Right? She trusted them. She wouldn’t hurt them.

But she might.

But she wouldn’t, she’d never want to.

Did she _want_ to hurt—

“Hey,” Amethyst said, waving a hand in front of her face. “You’re getting in your head again.”

Lapis expelled any remaining air from her chest like something heavy had just been laid on top of her. “Yeah,” she said.

Amethyst examined her face for a moment, then said, “Kiss me.”

Lapis obeyed, and as their lips met, moved together, she relaxed. Peridot moved closer, hooked a leg over one of Lapis’s, and tugged on her. “Me too,” she murmured, and Lapis turned her head and kissed Peridot. The worries of the day, the tears, the tension, eased away, and she smiled into the kiss.

Amethyst’s hand smoothed over the exposed section of her midriff, and Lapis shivered, a burn starting low in her belly. “What do you want?” Amethyst whispered in her ear, and Lapis’s smile turned into a smirk.

“Fuck me,” she said.

Amethyst chuckled.

If Lapis was honest, she sometimes preferred the Homeworld style of calling sex “bringing someone to their peak.” It felt…gentler, more like giving. But Amethyst had never heard the phrase until a couple years ago, and sometimes the cruder human words worked better.

Amethyst pulled on the gold ribbon holding up her pants, and slipped her hand under the hem. “You know,” she said, her fingers teasing just around where Lapis wanted them, “this would be easier if you’d kept the dress.”

Lapis snorted; Peridot joked, “Easy access.”

This was good, Lapis thought as Peridot scooted just closer, kissed her neck, as Amethyst rubbed through growing wetness. She trusted her partners, and they trusted her. Everything would be fine. They weren’t going to pressure her, they weren’t going to force her. They loved her.

She loved them.

She gripped Amethyst’s shoulder, and moaned.

* * *

In the months following their first fusion, Aventurine was present…sort of a lot. And Lapis didn’t mind. It helped, actually, to see her so often, to recognize her smile as nothing like _her_ sneer, for flashes of green to remind Lapis less of _her_ and more of Aventurine. Aventurine, as it turned out, loved nothing more than to scoop Lapis up once the blue gem was comfortable with it, and it made Lapis laugh every time because of course her short partners would both love to be tall enough to gem-handle her every now and then.

Was it hard, sometimes, to watch Aventurine wrestling with Sunstone on the beach as the sun set on nights Steven was visiting? Was it hard, knowing that Peridot and Amethyst found so much joy in fusing, joy she couldn’t bring them and couldn’t feel herself?

Of course.

And sometimes she still had nightmares when she chose to sleep, and sometimes she still flinched back on bad days, and sometimes she stepped back from Aventurine and mumbled, “Not today.”

But they didn’t push her, didn’t get hurt, never expected her to do something she couldn’t, and so she wasn’t always so tense. The tension, when it came, really was her own fault, of her own doing. _She_ blamed herself for being unable to fuse. No one else did.

Worst, almost, was that she started comparing fusion to sex. They weren’t the same, she knew they weren’t the same, but weren’t they similar, in a way? Being that close to someone, bringing them to some strange peak, whether of pleasure or fusion. So why, _why_ , could she bring Peridot and Amethyst to their peaks, let them bring her to hers, but not give them this other thing? It swirled in her mind, the thoughts soon growing so large that they rang in her ears every time she saw Aventurine, every time one of her partners touched her.

She took to flying up to the old water tower at the edge of Beach City, sitting alone until someone found her and clambered or jumped up to join her. Usually, by then, she’d relaxed a touch, and was able to laugh with Steven or lean into the arm Amethyst threw around her shoulders or kiss Peridot. Sometimes it would be Bismuth, and she’d call up from the bottom, complaining, and Lapis would fly down because Bismuth couldn’t climb the tower.

Lapis loved her life.

If she had the choice, she’d cut out these thoughts, the traumas, any worry or tension or fear, because what was the point of it all when she wasn’t in any danger? Sure, there’d always be little things like the other lapides lazuli she and Steven had had to talk down, like Steven’s corruption—well, that hadn’t been small. But it was over, all the big things were over, so Lapis didn’t need to be constantly on edge.

But she was.

And then Peridot and Steven managed to fuse, during one of Steven’s trips home.

It was funny, Lapis thought, because many gems fused for the first time in moments of extreme danger. Everyone knew, at this point, Garnet’s story. Steven fused with her and with Pearl for the first time when they were plummeting to their shattering deaths, with Amethyst for the first time while facing…Jasper.

But Aventurine?

And now this new fusion, Zoisite?

They were taller than Aventurine, taller than Smoky too, swirls of pink and green covering their body. Lapis was there, this time, when Peridot had thrown herself at Steven, knocking him to the ground to berate him for something or other. Everyone was laughing, she was laughing, and then there was light and her laughter died because for a moment her entire world was light and all she could see—

Then Amethyst was cheering, and Lapis blinked the spots from her eyes and there they stood, examining each limb. “Huh,” they said. “Look at that.”

Amethyst scurried up to them, and said, “Yeah, look at that alright! How do you feel?”

“Great!” the fusion said, grinning. They had four eyes, four arms, two legs, and they stood on one foot then the other to test their balance.

“And what’s your name?” Pearl prompted.

“Zoisite,” they said.

Zoisite.

Lapis wondered what she’d be, fused with Steven, or Peridot or Amethyst. Who she’d be. The others crowded around Zoisite, who was laughing, and Lapis wondered if anyone would notice if she left. She wouldn’t want to hurt Zoisite’s feelings, but…wouldn’t she just bring the mood down? She had a tendency to do that. So she took a few steps back, and then a few more, and then crept away.

She relaxed once she was in their apartment, surveyed the meep morps, hugged herself. She sank down to sit in a clear spot on the floor, and wrapped her arms around her knees, pulling them to her chest.

“Hey.”

She almost jumped, but it was like her body was too tired to react, so she just looked over her shoulder and tried to smile at Amethyst. “Hey,” she said. “Won’t they notice you’re gone?”

“Won’t they notice _you’re_ gone?” Amethyst shot back, and picked around morps to join her on the floor. She sat cross-legged, scooted forward so her shins were brushing Lapis’s, and said again, “Hey.”

Lapis rested her chin on one knee. “Didn’t wanna be a party pooper.”

“Eh,” Amethyst said, shrugging. “Not much of a party to poop. They’ll probably fall apart pretty soon anyway.”

“Peri might want us to be there.”

“She’ll be fine,” Amethyst said, reaching out, and Lapis crawled into her lap, tucking her face into the crook of Amethyst’s neck. They sat there for a time, in silence, until finally Amethyst said softly, “Wanna tell me what’s up?”

“I just…” she started, then stopped. What was it? What was the heart of this issue, the reason she wanted to look away from them sometimes? “I just wish it could be me.”

“Why?” Amethyst asked.

Lapis pulled away a bit, staring at her. “Why? Because I want to give it to you! I give you sex, I give you love, why can’t I give you this!”

“Uh, because you’re traumatized?” Amethyst said.

Lapis flinched at the word, at the bluntness. “So?” she said. “I love you. I trust you.”

“And we love and trust you,” Amethyst said. “But that doesn’t really matter.”

Lapis sighed, because she knew that, somewhere. “I love you,” she whispered, trying to convey everything, every apology, every anger, every sadness in her voice.

“I love you too,” Amethyst whispered back, and Lapis thought she’d understood. They kissed, gently, lightly, and then pulled away to lean their foreheads together. Lapis felt, in that moment, like she’d never been safer in her life, like she’d never be this safe again. She wished they could stay like that forever, together, in each other’s arms, content and open and in love.

But then—

Then she saw light behind her closed eyelids, opened her eyes and Amethyst’s gem was glowing. And she could feel the prickle that meant hers was too, and the edges of their forms started to glow and blur and panic burst to life in her chest. She shoved herself away from Amethyst, scrambled back on her hands and feet, and apologies were flowing from her mouth so fast and thick that it took her a moment to realize Amethyst was apologizing too, reaching out with her hands up, placating, eyes wide and _sorry_ , and it wasn’t her fault it was Lapis’s it was Lapis’s fault and she had to get _away_ —

She didn’t exactly remember summoning her wings, twisting through the hallways with careful, hairpin turns until she reached open air and was able to fly up, up, up.

Away.

She didn’t know how long she flew. She didn’t know where she was going. She just _went_ , through clouds, clear skies, a storm, all of it blurring past with the speed of her flight. Her mind was almost blank, with fear, with the overwhelming nothingness that sometimes took her, with a deep, searing guilt.

She should be better.

She should be better, better than she was before emotionally, a better person, just _better_. This shouldn’t bother her anymore, she shouldn’t wake screaming from nightmares, she shouldn’t… _Jasper_ was fine. Jasper was _shattered_ and she was fine. Why was she…why was _she_ still in her head, still in her body, still encouraging her to lash out when she was surprised? Why was Lapis like this? Why couldn’t she just be _fixed_?

She finally landed hours after she’d left Beach City, lighting down on some howling mountain peak in the middle of a snowstorm. She hugged her knees to her chest, let the wind buffet her, let the snow surround her, let the cold sink into her form. She was alone here, on the highest land for miles, the whiteness of the storm shielding her from the world, shielding the world from her. She could stay here forever. She could wait until she was completely encased in snow, close her eyes and go to sleep forever.

There was nothing to stop her.

Her chest hurt; Amethyst and Peridot’s faces floated in her mind, and she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, burying her face in her arms. Were they worth it?

Of course they were. The real question was if _Lapis_ was worth it. The answer to that was a little more difficult, but with consideration the answer was clear. No. They would be fine without her, wouldn’t they? She was the sullen one, the problem one, the one who _needed_ the most.

She took a deep, cold, cold breath, and lifted her face up, staring at the whipping snowflakes and endless white.

* * *

It was less than a day later that a dark figure came into sight, climbing the mountain apparently unbothered by the storm. A gem, then. Lapis turned her face away, leaning her cheek on one knee and staring sideways. Sideways? In this storm it was hard to tell which way was up, with the snowflakes flying in every direction.

“Lapis,” Garnet said in greeting, taking a seat beside her.

Lapis didn’t respond.

Of course they wouldn’t let her leave them alone.

They were both silent for a long time, then Lapis said, “How’s Zoisite?”

“Fine,” Garnet said. “They unfused soon after you left.”

She finally looked at Garnet. “Peridot didn’t follow us.”

The fusion shrugged. “I encouraged her not to. I saw you needed a bit of time.”

“Did you know I was going to run?”

Another shrug. “I suspected. Didn’t need future vision for that, though.”

“Guess that’s predictable,” Lapis said, looking away again. Garnet didn’t speak; Lapis thought she was shrugging again.

There was a second silence, and then Garnet shifted beside her, and said, “Did you know I did this with Pearl, once? Twice, actually, but one of them was because she was dealing with some self-blame issues.”

Lapis didn’t say anything, but turned her head again to show she was listening.

Garnet smiled. “Both times are sort of relevant, I suppose. The first was during the war. The second was a couple years ago.”

She was quiet again, and Lapis wondered if she was waiting for Lapis to ask. The silence stretched, and so she sighed, drawing in the thin air and letting it come out audibly. “Okay, I’ll bite. What did you talk about?”

“The second time—well, the second time Pearl had done something very stupid, and it took a while for me to forgive her. That conversation was me forgiving her. Both conversations, though, were about fusion, at least in part.” Garnet smiled again. “The first conversation was just after we’d formed Sardonyx for the first time. She thought she was overstepping into Ruby and Sapphire’s relationship. She felt guilty.”

Garnet would make her point eventually, Lapis knew. That was just how she was. Did Lapis want to hear what she had to say?

“You feel guilty too,” Garnet said. “You know you don’t need to.”

“Is that supposed to help?” Lapis asked. “Obviously I know my feelings are stupid.”

“Your feelings aren’t stupid.” Garnet was gazing off over the just barely visible valley as the storm died down—or at least Lapis thought she was. She could never tell with that visor hiding the fusion’s eyes. “Knowing your feelings are irrational and working to accept them and move on is different than knowing your feelings are irrational and giving up hope of changing them.”

“You think I haven’t tried?” Lapis felt that anger rising up again, that self-loathing that was sometimes so thick she could taste it. “I should be better by now.”

“Better than what?”

She scoffed, rolled her eyes, threw her arms out. “Better! Better than when I worked for Homeworld, better than I was in the mirror, better than I was after… I should _be_ better and I should _feel_ better.”

“Better than you were after what?” Garnet asked.

“What?”

“You said better than when you worked for Homeworld and when you were in the mirror, and after…what?”

It felt like any air that happened to be in her chest froze. “You know what.”

Garnet shrugged. “Better than you were after what?”

She wanted to run again; she wanted to fly away to the moon again, farther, farther than Homeworld, on some little floating space rock where no one could find her. _“Her.”_

“Say her name.”

She glared. “You can’t make me.”

“No,” Garnet said, “I can’t. But you know growth starts somewhere, and you may have started a long time ago but you can’t just expect to be able to plant a seed and watch it grow without anymore tending. You of all gems know that.”

“I’m not a plant,” she muttered.

“Not any more than any of us,” Garnet said. “Say her name, Lapis.”

“Fine,” she spat. “ _Malachite_. I’m no better than I was then, and I should be. I sh-should—should be over it.”

“No you shouldn’t,” Garnet said.

Lapis stared at her. “I should,” she said again. “It’s been—”

“It doesn’t matter how long it’s been,” Garnet interrupted. “That’s not something you can just be ‘over.’ You entered into a fusion only half willingly, and had to use all your energy to keep that fusion at bay and hold it together. You did that for _months_. That takes more strength than I think any gem but the diamonds has in her.”

She shivered, though the cold didn’t bother her light-based form. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.

“Nothing,” Garnet said. “Keep moving forward. Understand that Peridot and Amethyst don’t expect you to fuse with them, don’t _want_ you to fuse with them if you’re not ready. And they won’t mind if you’re never ready. They love you, Lapis.”

“I know,” she said miserably.

“Trust them.”

“I do,” she said.

“Do you?” Garnet asked, and Lapis wanted to be angry, wanted to shout that of _course_ she did, but any words died in her throat when she looked into Garnet’s face. She trusted them, she wanted to say. She tried, opened her mouth, tried so hard to force the words into the open but all that came out was a tight, hissing breath, pressed from her tight throat. In the face of Garnet’s gentle passivity, her impartiality, her quiet—

Lapis put her head between her knees, gripped her hair in both fists. “I want to,” she whimpered. “I do, I do trust them, I—I-I—”

The hand that reached out and laid itself on the back of her neck held a gem that cooled her overheated skin. She let out a small, dry sob, shaking uncontrollably, and Garnet rubbed her thumb back and forth, waiting.

It felt like forever.

When she looked up, peered at Garnet with one half open eye, the fusion’s visor was gone. “It’ll take time,” she said. “It’ll take practice. I think you should talk to Pearl. She has some familiarity with a similar situation.”

“I just want to be able to love them.”

At that, Garnet smiled. “You do.”

* * *

They talked, when Lapis and Garnet returned. Of course they did. It was uncomfortable, and they all cried, but Amethyst and Peridot promised again and again that they didn’t think any less of her, they didn’t expect her to, they didn’t _want_ her to, they weren’t disappointed. It would take time, like Garnet had said, but Lapis tried with all her might to believe that someday she’d be able to watch her loves fusing and not feel that pang of guilt. She continued her trips up to the water tower, assuring those who gave her sidelong looks that it really was just to enjoy the view, and time went on.

Steven visited periodically, then returned each time to his road trip of the world.

Connie started college, and Steven settled down (for now) in the town where she was.

Little Homeworld and its school flourished.

Lapis—she thought—grew, at least a little.

It was a bad day (though bad days were nowhere near as bad as they used to be), the day she sat on the water tower watching the sunset and Pearl climbed up to sit beside her. “May I join you?” she asked softly.

Lapis shrugged. Words…felt like too much effort, right then, especially if they weren’t completely necessary.

Pearl was quiet, for a time, watching the sunset with her, and then she said, “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Lapis nodded.

“It’s funny that something that’s almost a loss can be so gorgeous.”

She turned her head, looked at Pearl. The pale gem was leaning back on her hands, completely relaxed, gazing out towards the horizon. Lapis thought she had an ulterior motive.

Pearl took a deep, deep breath. Lapis watched her chest rise endlessly. “I let Rose have sex for me for thousands of years,” she said conversationally. “Even though I hated it.”

Lapis blinked. Oh.

Pearl laughed, cast her eyes down at her lap, shook her head a bit, and said, “‘Hate’ feels very small. I suppose ‘loathed’ might be a better word, or ‘abhorred.’”

“She didn’t know?” Lapis asked, because at least these weren’t words about herself.

“No,” Pearl said, shaking her head again. “At least I hope she didn’t. Rose did many good things. She did many bad things. She lied, she forgot, she ignored. She could be a bit flighty.” Pearl took another breath. “Even now it’s been almost two decades since she…died. And it feels hard to say those things. I couldn’t accept them for a long time.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

She shrugged. “Mostly a segue into a different type of conversation. Also because I’m working on accepting my own feelings towards Rose, Pink, whatever.”

“A different type of conversation.” There was the ulterior motive. Lapis wondered if Garnet had sent her.

Pearl nodded. “As I said, I let Rose have sex with me for a very long time. Then she died, and then a little bit after Steven released you, Garnet and I…well.”

Lapis nodded too, a smirk lightly stretching her lips, because everyone knew about the two of them even though they were subtle. It was in the little things—in the way Pearl would lean into Garnet without thinking, in the way Garnet’s hand would place itself on Pearl’s back or Pearl’s would trail along Garnet’s arm. Pearl smiled, flushing a bit, then shook herself and continued, “For a while, we didn’t talk about it—sex, bringing each other to our peaks. Then we did, because Garnet noticed what Rose never had before we got further than kissing. And for a long time I felt guilty. I would have done it for her, like I did it for Rose, even though I hate it, loathe it. I would have done that.” Pearl sighed a bit shakily. “But she didn’t want me to, because that is not how consent works, and it’s not how intimacy works. Intimacy is when you look at another person and feel like they know you best in the world, or when they hand you something before you’ve even realized you need it. Intimacy doesn’t have to be physical closeness.”

Lapis brought her knees up, leaned her cheek on one so she could keep looking at Pearl. “I know where you’re going with this.”

“Alright,” Pearl said, shrugging. “That’s good. Because fusion and sex aren’t the same, but they both should involve trust, intimacy, and complete consent. Garnet and I don’t have sex, even though she is not asexual, because I don’t want to, and I never will. She knows that. I know that. She doesn’t care. The few times I tried to offer, close to the beginning, it actually distressed her quite a bit, because fusion and sex aren’t the same but they are similar, and consent is one of the biggest parts of Garnet’s existence, her relationship, and her attitude towards relationships in general.”

“I want to think it’s the same,” Lapis said. “You and me. Our situations. But I can’t.”

“I hope you can someday,” Pearl said, “because they really are quite similar, and Amethyst and Peridot _do not want_ you to fuse with them if you’re not ready or you’ll never be ready. _That’s okay._ ”

“I’m working on that,” Lapis said. “I think I’m getting better. But there’s still a part of me that thinks I should.”

“There’s still a part of me that thinks I should be giving Garnet this,” Pearl said. “Every time I hear it, I just push it away gently, because I know she doesn’t want me to do that to myself. It’ll probably always be there.” Pearl sighed, leaned forward, propped her cheek on her fist, and said, “I talked to another gem, like I’m talking to you now. I won’t share her identity, but she’d done what I did. She’d had sex with her partner for a very, very long time. She thought she was defective for not enjoying it.”

Defective, Lapis thought. She hated that the word made sense, took hold of her condition. It wasn’t. She shoved it away.

“The situation was different,” Pearl continued, “just like ours are not exactly the same, because she was not a pearl, so she and her partner were equals, but she still made herself do it because she thought she had to.” Pearl smiled. “We don’t _have_ to do anything anymore.”

“We don’t,” Lapis agreed, the words a whisper.

Pearl turned to look out over the world again, and Lapis followed her gaze. The sun had almost completely set now, just a sliver of it visible over the horizon. “The world is beautiful,” Pearl said. “We get to see that. We get to do or be whatever we want to.” She looked at Lapis one last time, smiled softly, proudly.

“We’re free.”

Four months later, Lapis was seated on the beach. Steven and Connie were visiting, leaned up against Lion who was fast asleep. They were holding hands, talking, laughing. Greg was by his old grill, making hamburgers and hot dogs for the people who chose to eat as Cat Steven wound through his legs, begging for scraps and almost tripping him every few seconds. Bismuth was talking to Garnet, and Pearl lay in the fusion’s arms, her eyes closed, a content smile on her face. Lapis herself watched it all, feeling light, feeling happy, felling relaxed.

Aventurine was standing at the edge of the waves, letting water wash over her feet.

Lapis considered her, thinking about the first time she formed, how she’d come to show Lapis first. She thought about her partners, Peridot’s laugh and Amethyst’s (admittedly sometimes dirty) jokes. She thought about loving them. She thought about the past, and the future, and the countless years they had ahead of them to do whatever they wanted.

She closed her eyes with a little sigh, and smiled.

“Hey Lapis.”

She opened her eyes. Aventurine had wandered over, was looking at her with an almost inscrutable expression on her face.

Almost.

Lapis’s smile widened. “Hey, Aventurine. What’s up?”

She shrugged, her eyes sliding off to the side. “Dance with me?”

There was a moment, a split second of confusion, but then Aventurine’s eyes widened and she took half a step back, shaking her head, waving her hands. “Not to fuse! Just—to dance. I-I know there’s no music, and—but I won’t fuse with you. I promise.”

And Lapis Lazuli felt a swelling in her being, a feeling so large in its completeness that it almost stole her voice. That beautiful future stretched out in front of her, glittering, golden, wonderful. She smiled.

She reached out a hand to Aventurine, who took it. And Lapis said, meaning it with all her heart, all her gem, all her self—

“I trust you.”


End file.
